DIRECTOR OF OPS AND FINANCE

THE ROLE

Your job in one sentence: protect revenue.

You own the financial and operational outcome of the business. Your job is to run cash, inventory, and fulfillment so well that the founder never has to step into ops or finance, because every hour he spends there is an hour not spent on product and marketing, which is where the company grows.

Your score is one number: Total Operational Loss, the sum of the three costs you control. Cancels caused by lead times, shipping to customers, and freight to the USA including reships and replacement parts. Every week you predict it, then beat your prediction.

This is not a reporting role. Reports are the exhaust of the job, not the job. You plan what gets paid and when, you keep inventory landing before we stock out and after we can afford it, you push suppliers and the 3PL when they slip, and you bring the founder decisions with your recommendation attached, not problems without options.

You will work daily with the founder, our systems lead, our payments coordinator, our CS team, our 3PL, and our factories.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN: FINANCE

--> The 25-week rolling cash flow model: multi-scenario, assumption-driven, synced to the inventory tracker, with every week's low point visible before it arrives

--> Bill payments: you d ---------- and dictate what gets paid, when, and what gets pushed or negotiated. You issue the weekly payment sheet that the team executes wires from. The founder approves in one look on Slack. Nobody plans payments but you, and no bill moves off your schedule without you flagging what it does to the projection

--> Loan and financing management: Shopify Capital, Wayflyer, supplier terms, including modeling repayment schedules before we sign, not after

--> Supplier payment negotiation: deposits, Net terms, and holding suppliers to the projection instead of quietly absorbing their timing

--> Sales and demand modeling: regressions on Shopify data to size orders and set revenue expectations

--> Cash turnover and downside scenarios: what comes back each week when we sell, and what breaks at 85 percent of plan

--> Sales tax, duties, and tariff tracking with our accountants

WHAT YOU WILL OWN: OPERATIONS

--> Inventory planning end to end: factory orders sized and timed against runway, ocean freight booked at lowest landed cost, containers mapped to warehouses, the inventory tracker kept live

--> Supplier management: quotes, POs, deposits, production follow-ups, and escalating when a factory or vendor goes quiet

--> 3PL performance: receiving events checked in on time, priority orders shipped inside 48 hours, backorder allocation, and daily escalation when they slip

--> Fulfillment economics and trade-off math: sometimes spending more in one column saves the total, like shipping only from Arizona at higher cost to cut lead times when the cancels prevented cost more than the extra shipping. Every recommendation comes with cost added per order and cost per day saved

--> CS operations interface: allocation of constrained stock, cancel-rate reduction tied to lead times, and keeping the cancel backlog shrinking. You answer five questions cold, without opening a file: are we gaining or losing days of stock, how is ship-to-customer trending, how is landed cost trending, how are cancels trending, and how are we preserving revenue across all four

--> Freight quotes and duty planning for every inbound container

HOW YOU WILL WORK

--> AI-first for systems, manual for accountability: every workflow runs through Claude before the old way, and if AI cannot do something you try at least 20 approaches before calling it blocked. But your weekly numbers and your "what I am doing about it" are typed by you, in your own words. Automated AI reports do not get read and do not get felt. You have to physically know your numbers.

--> Done means excellent, shipped, and visible. "Almost done" is not a status. Work the founder never sees did not happen.

--> Weekly cadence: Tuesday morning review call (ops, finance, CS) where you present. Friday written recap of what shipped, hours saved, experiments running, and what you need.

--> Decisions travel with options: when you are stuck, you bring what you tried, the choices, and your recommendation. Never a problem without options.

--> Numbers get verified to source. A model is checked against the bank balance, the loan offer sheet, and the tracker before anyone d ---------- on it. Errors get documented so they are not repeated.

--> You push back out loud. When a supplier, a bill, or a teammate breaks the plan, you flag it the day it happens instead of silently adjusting the model.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Must-haves:

--> 3+ years running ops or finance for an ecommerce or DTC brand with physical inventory: you have placed factory orders, booked ocean freight, and lived through a cash crunch

--> Strong spreadsheet modeling: you can build a driver-based cash flow model with live formulas, defend every number in it, and find the broken sum in someone else's

--> Supplier and 3PL management experience, including uncomfortable negotiations over terms and timing

--> Daily, fluent AI use: you already work with Claude or similar tools and can show something real you built with them

--> Excellent written English: most decisions here happen in Slack, in short clear writing

--> Ownership and strategic proactivity: you have run a function where the outcome was yours, not just the tasks. The bar here is manager, not assistant: you see the big picture and arrive at the problems yourself, before anyone names them for you

You are not a fit if:

--> You need detailed instructions before starting, or wait to be unblocked instead of trying another way

--> Your instinct when a number is off is to adjust quietly rather than raise it

--> You prefer deep work in private over showing unfinished work early

--> You see AI as a threat or a shortcut rather than the way the job is done

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

First 30 days: you know every supplier, loan, container, and payment by name and can answer the five questions cold. You run the weekly payment plan and the Tuesday review without help. Your Total Operational Loss scorecard is ---------- the number, the three columns, your prediction, and what you are doing about it, every Friday. The cash flow model is verified to source and you have found at least one thing wrong with it.

By 60 days: inventory orders are placed on your recommendation. The founder approves your plans in one look instead of building them with you. The operational efficiency score is reported weekly and climbing.

By 90 days: the founder has not been pulled into an ops or finance fire for a month. Cash low points are flagged weeks ahead with options attached. You have systematized at least three recurring workflows with AI and can show the hours saved.

COMPENSATION

--> Salary: USD 2,500 per month, full time, remote

--> Hours: substantial overlap with US Eastern mornings required for the weekly review and founder calls

--> Performance upside: team members who own outcomes share in company-wide incentive pools when we win

--> Tools provided: Claude, Slack, Google Workspace, Shopify, and whatever else the job needs

HOW TO APPLY

Send the following. Applications missing any item will not be read.

1. A short note on the hardest cash or inventory decision you have owned: the numbers, what you chose, and what happened

2. One spreadsheet model you built yourself, with a paragraph on how you verified it

3. One concrete example of a workflow you automated or ran with AI, with before and after

4. Your earliest available start date